The Pre-Raphaelite Movement as a reaction to
pure Victorian Didacticism
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Name- Kavisha Alagiya
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Paper 6- Victorian Literature
Roll No- 10
Enrollment no.- 2069108420200001
Batch
– MA 2019-21
Submitted to - Smt S. B. Gardi Department of English
Contents
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1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE PRE-RAPHAELITE
MOVEMENT
3. FEATURES OF
PRE-RAPHAELITE MOVEMENT
a. ART FOR ART'S SAKE
b. RETURN TO MIDDLE
AGES
c. PICTORIAL ELEMENT
d. MELODY
4. CONCLUSION
5. WORKS CITED
INTRODUCTION
“We are
not makers of history. We are made by history.”
-Martin
Luther King, Jr.
The above-mentioned quote demonstrates that if history is doomed to repeat itself than the early
episodes which we were shaped by can be taken as a lesson to understand and act
in a rational way. As because it is the history which shapes us as a human being,
we somewhat are the product of history. The present situation of India is full
of social unrest similarly; the Victorian age of England, in the words of
William J. Long was
“THE
MODERN PERIOD OF PROGRESS AND UNREST”
Queen Victoria came to the
throne in 1837 and gave her name to the period which lasted until the end of
the century. (Daiches)
With the arrival of Queen Victoria to the throne, the literature of the age
took a new turn in reflecting the social issues of the time. William J. Long
notes, ‘When Victoria became the queen, English literature seemed to have
entered upon a period of lean years, in marked contrast with poetic
fruitfulness of the romantic age which we have just studied.’ (Long) During this time, a
movement was started in England in 1848 as an organization of painters who
called themselves Pre-Raphaelites. This assignment aims to highlight the
Pre-Raphaelite movement and its salient features to the general readers.
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE MOVEMENT
The
term Pre-Raphaelite, which refers to both art and literature, is confusing
because there were essentially two different and almost opposed movements, the
second of which grew out of the first. (Landow)
The Pre-Raphaelite Movement of the
Victorian age is assumed to be a strong reaction against the didacticism of
previous ages. This was perhaps the idealistic reaction against the moral
fervor and the preaching of poets and novelists with contemporary society. The
reign of Queen Victoria marked the growing tendency of making literature a
handmaid of social reform and an instrument for the propagation of moral and
spiritual ideas. Literature was ideally becoming the vehicle of social, moral
and political problems.
Novelists like Dickens, Carlyle, and
Ruskin was deeply concerned about the social oppression of women and children
as well as the harsh realities of developing England and therefore they were
prominently engaged in attacking the evils rampant in the society of 19th
century England. Some of the poets were also expressing the grave fear of age
through their writings. These kinds of writings were deeply serious but the
expression and tone were comic.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was
against the occupation of poets, prose writers, and novelists with the mundane
problems of the times. A set of high sold artists formed a group in 1848 called
the 'Pre-Raphaelite group' and had an exhibition of their pictures. Their aim
was to bring back technical sincerity and spiritual truth to the arts of
painting and poetry. The members of this group or brotherhood were D G
Rossetti, Holmon Hunt, and J E Millais and later it was joined by William
Morris is an A. C. Swinburne. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the leader of this
group in England. The group is believed to have done their best to revive
simplicity freshness and liberty in painting, and soon their attempt in the
revival of poetry and sculpture in the same line.
All the members of the brotherhood
were repelled by the avaricious and materialistic contents that had controlled
the minds of the major Victorians. The main purpose of this brotherhood was to
escape from the world of grave realities to a land of beauty, art, and
pleasantness where these personalities would satisfy their urge for art and
creation of beautiful things.
Originally it was the movement for
the regeneration of painting on the models of the early Italian painters. Being
dissatisfied with Raphael’s loftiness of conception and perfection of
technique, this brotherhood thought of the early Italian painters having
simplicity and natural grace. They wanted to encourage the originality of
conception and freshness of content which Raphael discouraged. Their
determination was to break away from stereotyped traditions in a painting set
up by Raphael and return to the earlier painters of Italy whose work satisfied
them with their freshness and liberty.
FEATURES OF PRE-RAPHAELITE MOVEMENT
ART
FOR ART'S SAKE
Wordsworth believed that a poet
was primarily a teacher and Keats said that he hated that poetry which had a perceptible
design on the mind of readers. Keats discarded any moral or didactic purpose
for he was first and foremost an artist. The Pre-Raphaelites followed the
example of Keats and believed that poetry has no goodness to serve than to
serve it. They were all artists and believed in art as their religion as well
as aimed at the perfection of form and finish.
They had no morality to preach and no reforms to introduce through the
medium of their poetry. Legouis rightly said,
“The
Pre-Raphaelites were above all artists. Art was their religion.”
Love of beauty was their creed
and if in glorifying beauty they had to be sensuous, did not fear the charges
of rabid castigators and critics like R.W. Buchanan attacked violently D. G.
Rossetti for founding ‘the flashy School of poetry’.
RETURN
TO MIDDLE AGES
The Pre-Raphaelite poetry is a
continuation of the romantic poetry headed by Coleridge and Keats, particularly
in the revival and glorification of the Middle Ages. In order to escape from
the ugliness of contemporary society, they turned their eyes to the good old
days of medievalism when chivalry and knighthood, adventure and heroism were in
the air. D. G. Rossetti was the hero of this return to medievalism for poetic
inspiration. His poems 'The Blessed Damozel' and 'Sister Helen' are medieval in
outlook and form. The symbolism of the medical days is well-respected in them.
In the words of A. J. Wyatt,
"In literature,
Coleridge, Keats, and Tennyson had all felt and expressed the mystery and
romance of the age of chivalry. But no expression of the permanent value and
inspiration of medieval ideas are more important than the work of Rossetti,
Morris, and Swinburne. All make use of medieval imagery, medieval legend, and
medieval ideas and create an atmosphere of medieval romance. Their middle ages
are no more historical than those of Tennyson 'Idylls'; but they do not profess
to be. The atmosphere of their works is the atmosphere of a dream, not of any
real place or time, and their morality is the morality of the dream
world." (Wyatt)
PICTORIAL
ELEMENT
The Pre-Raphaelites were
pictorial artists and their paintings, as well as poems, were symphonies in
color. Their poems appear to be a rhythmic pageant of color. The pictorial
element is more inconsistent in Rossetti than in Keats is obviously due to the
fact that Rossetti's outlook on the world is essentially that of the painter.
He thinks and feels in pigments. "Too much of thinking and feeling in
pigment" leads to some defects. The two major defects in his poetry are -
- The indulgence in over decoration
- When related to the human body, the impression of sensuality or voluptuousness is created.
Some examples of Rossetti's overwrought
pictorial touches which first please but ultimately cloy the reader are the
following-
“Her robe, unit, from clasp to
hem
No wrought flowers did adorn
But a white rose of Mary's gift
For service meetly worth
Her hair that lay along her
back
Was yellow like ripe corn” (Rossetti)
Rossetti's sensuousness often
touches the border of lavishly decorated descriptions when he dwells upon the
beauties of the human body. Perhaps this is why Robert Buchanan attacked
Rossetti's poetry by calling it 'the fleshy school'.
One is charmed by the pictorial
effect of the following lines from Rossetti's 'The Blessed Damozel'.
“The blessed Damozel leaned out
From the golden bar of heaven;
And the souls mounting up to
God
Went by her like thin flames”
(Rossetti)
MELODY
Pre-Raphaelite poetry is
distinguished by its rich melody. They sought it deliberately and often
sacrificed sense at the altar of sound. Emily Legouis rightly comments,
"Vowels, call the vowels, and consonants to consonants and these links
often seem stronger than the links of thought or imagery." (Legouis) The free flow of the swift-moving lines is remarkable in Swinburne. The following
stanza from Swinburne's 'Atalanta in Calydon' is a masterpiece of musical
harmony:
"The wild vine ships with
the weight of its leaves,
But the berries ivy catches and
cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the
feet that scare
The Wolf that follows, the fawn
that flies." (Swinburne)
CONCLUSION
The movement was the humble
adherence to truth, which was absent from the sophisticated art of Raphael and his
successors. The movement was a praiseworthy attempt of reviving simplicity,
freshness, newness, and freedom in painting which soon extended its bounds to
include the revival of poetry and sculpture of the same lines.
The leaders of the movement
sought to achieve in art and literature what Newman had tried to do in the
church. In this way, the Pre-Raphaelite Movement supported by Oxford men became
the child and heir of the Oxford movement.
WORKS CITED
1.Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature.
8th. Vol. 2. New Dehli: Supernova Publishers and distributors Pvt. Ltd., 2010.
2 vols.
2. Landow, George P. "Pre-Raphaelites: An
Introduction." 19 May 2019. The Victorian Web. 07 March 2020
<http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/1.html>.
3. Legouis, Emile, and Louis François Cazamian. A history
of English literature. Vol. 2. JM Dent & Sons Limited, 1927.
4. Long, William J. English Literature Its History and
its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World. New Delhi:
AITBS publishers, 2016.
5. Mahboob, Marwa. “16major
Literary Movements.” Scribd, Scribd,
www.scribd.com/document/126073177/16major-Literary-Movements.
6. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.
“The blessed damozel.” Duckworth, 1898.
7. Swinburne, Algernon
Charles, and Morse Peckham. Poems and Ballads, “Atalanta in Calydon.” Ardent
Media, 2000.
8. Wyatt, Alfred John. The
Tutorial History of English Literature... 1901.
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